The four-nation AEHF program is led by the U.S. Air
Force Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles
Air Force Base, California.

Sunnyvale CA
(SPX) - All partner nations are now using the Advanced
Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) protected communications
satellite system after the United Kingdom connected earlier
this year. Four nations will use the Lockheed
Martin-produced satellites for their most important
transmissions, from commanders-in-chief to troops in the
field.

The U.K. connection follows Canada's first successful
call in May, 2013, and The Netherlands' initial connection
came two months later. Over the past year AEHF facilitated
many connections between international users, and U.S.-led
tests in April included all four partners.

"AEHF is a keystone in global security. It is the only
system that can provide highly-protected communications,
circumventing our adversaries' jammers in most wartime
operations," said Mark Calassa, vice president of Protected
Communication Systems at Lockheed Martin.

"We are committed to driving this capability forward.
All four partners are connected, and we are marching
steadily toward Multi-Service Operational Test and
Evaluation."

U.K. armed forces started to connect over the course of
several weeks beginning Feb. 25. They used two terminal
variants to communicate with AEHF-2: One made for
connections on land and another designed for users at sea.
Service members contacted the satellite at Colerne
Airfield, Wiltshire, with the shore variant of the Navy
Multiband Terminal (NMT). In separate tests, U.K. users
connected via the NMT ship variant from Telemetry and
Command Station Oakhanger, Hampshire.

"AEHF not only delivers higher-bandwidth communications
for the U.K., it makes communications with allies faster
and easier," Calassa said.

"AEHF is showing it can handle the demands of protected
coalition communications at high speeds, connecting nations
with their own users and allied users across the globe."

The four-nation AEHF program is led by the U.S. Air
Force Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air
Force Base, California. Lockheed Martin is under contract
to deliver the Mission Control Segment and six AEHF
satellites, which are assembled at the company's Sunnyvale,
California, facility.